OUTLINE:
Medical care and equipment have become more and more complex over the years. The costs, as a result, have soared. Speed and efficiency are increasingly important tools not only for saving lives, but also for reducing the cost of medical care.
Intravenous (I.V.) bottles are a particularly bad offender in the streamlining process. I.V. bottles require either a clumsy stand adjacent the patient's bed, or worse, in an emergency, an attendant to carry the bottle and other paraphernalia. Past efforts have not solved the problem.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,696,963 discloses a portable I.V. bottle carrier which attaches to a leg of the bed and which is vertically adjustable. In addition to dangerously projecting from the bed leg it is slow and awkward to handle, capable of use in only a limited number of positions and expensive to manufacture.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,373 discloses a support for an I.V. bottle which while being stable and relatively simple, is capable of only limited use as it only attaches to a cross-bar configuration.
A typical hospital bed has four holes inthe frame in which an I.V. pole can be positioned, two of which are located at the top of the bed, and two of which are located at the bottom of the bed. If a standard octagonal orthopedic traction bar is placed over the bed, this bar utilizes all four of the holes and there is no place left to put an I.V. pole.
A typical hospital stretcher has six holes on the frame. An I.V. pole positioned in any of these holes is unstable, especially in the carrying of such a stretcher, due to the shallow depth of these holes, the lack of close tolerances, and the hollow nature of the frame itself. In addition, the I.V. pole may be thewrong size for the particular hole on which it must be used.
A typical hospital wheelchair has one hole on the arm to support an I.V. pole, or a stationary pole on the back. Again the I.V. system is unstable in use. If the arm of the wheelchair is loose, the I.V. pole may fall out.
There is then a need for an I.V. system which is readily and quickly adaptable to any frame structure used in a hospital and which is strong and stable in use, inexpensive and simple in construction and which overcomes the disadvantages of prior devices.